How do consumers revise their unreachable goals?

Most consumers spend their lives setting?and revising?goals. Authors of a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research have unveiled a new model that captures the dynamics of goal revision."People set goals to regulate their weight, their spending, their eating, their alcohol and cigarette consumption, and many other things," write authors Chen Wang (University of British Columbia) and Anirban Mukhopadhyay (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology). But just as soon as people set goals, they start readjusting them.The authors explain this process by introducing Wally, who would like to lose some weight. Wally starts out by first establishing a goal to lose 20 pounds in the next month. But what if, a few days in, Wally realizes that losing 20 pounds is too difficult? Or what if his goal had been to lose five pounds and he loses it within two weeks? Both of these situations involve adjusting goals."As they strive toward their goals after setting them, people often recalibrate the original goal," the auth